Blockbuster, RIP

Back during the Madness, a neighbor happened to mention a new service that would let you rent DVDs online.  This was around the same time as eToys and WebVan, back when one could look at a preposterous business plan and think "Well, maybe I'm missing something."  Nonetheless it seemed a bit unlikely that people would want to wait for DVDs to arrive in the mail when they could just hop over to the local Blockbuster.  I didn't give the idea much of a chance.

About a decade later, Netflix is still going strong and Blockbuster has just filed for bankruptcy, sending its stock from about $0.06 to around $0.04.  That's a typical "oh look, you can too fall through the floor" dot-bomb performance and, sadly, not too much of a surprise.  I literally don't remember the last time I set foot in a Blockbuster or heard someone say "Oh, I'll rent it at Blockbuster".  For that matter, I'm still not sure when I last bought a DVD.  The only reason even to rent a DVD is that it's not available online cheaply enough.  My Netflix subscription, however, is still going, albeit at the minimum rate [and it's still alive and well ... the new "smart TV" in the bedroom has Netflix built in with a button for it on the remote control, and Netflix seems to be doing pretty well following the HBO playbook in moving from supplying movies to producing original content --D.H. Dec 2015].

The winner here, of course, is online video (provided you include video on demand).  The loser is physical video (tape and DVD, but with movie theaters in a separate category).  Netflix would likely be in the same boat as Blockbuster had it stuck to mailing DVDs and conversely Blockbuster might have survived had Netflix not beat it to the punch online.

So there you have it: Convergence and the web winning decisively over the old bricks-and-mortar model.  It really did happen.  Just years later and only in an industry that's essentially been selling bits all along.

March Madness, baby!

Every spring here in the US, the NCAA hosts its college basketball tournaments, and every year some many-digit number of dollars of productivity is lost as employees (and bosses) try to keep track of how their brackets are doing. The effect is particularly pronounced in the first round, a glorious orgy of 32 games, roughly in batches of four, spanning a Thursday and Friday in late March. The games go from about noon to midnight on the East Coast, and thus pretty much through the workday on the Pacific side.

What does this have to do with the web? Every year there's a bit more Madness online. This year, CBS is streaming every game for "free" on ncaa.com, using Silverlight. The quality is good (not that anyone at my place of work would have checked, of course), but "free" means you get a commercial at the beginning, an obnoxious animated ad off to the side, and the usual further commercials during what used to be the "TV time outs" and are now the "media time outs."

There's also the "boss button" that throws up an imitation spreadsheet. This must be just for laughs. If it actually fools your boss, you obviously need hoops to liven up what must otherwise be a stunningly dull workday.

All of this has been in place for a while, but each year's version is a little slicker and a little smoother as the media players get better and the net becomes better able to handle large loads of streaming video.

Can't watch the video? Well, you could always stream audio, or just check an automatically updating scoreboard. Playing the office pool? You can do that online, too. The site will do the busywork of keeping score. Some will even show updated scores of games in progress. Nice.

Frivolity? Sure (unless the Jayhawks are playing). But it's also a nice test case and driver for the technology. You have everything from streaming media down to nice UIs for showing scores and tracking brackets, all aimed at a mass market that, collectively, is very picky about usability. If your site is clunky, millions of sports fans that should rightfully have been your customers will find one that isn't.

Just the sort of testbed for improving the infrastructure to pave the way for ... um, well, March 2010 comes to mind ...

Is Netflix/Roku a web application?

Already sounds like one of those tail-chasing exercises where it all depends on your definitions, doesn't it? Or, put more kindly, a case where exploring the question is more valuable than any particular answer that might pop out. Let's try that angle [if you just want a review of the box, see here] ...

On the one hand, how could a set-top box be a web application? All you do is pick movies and watch them. There's no browser. You could say that picking a movie from the queue is like chasing a link but it seems more like a plain old menu. In particular, it feels a lot like picking a movie on demand with cable, except a little smoother and nicer. If the Netflix box is a web application you might as well say digital cable is, too.

On the other, the web is an essential part of the experience. You can't set up your queue without it. You can't even activate a box without going to the Netflix web site. The web interface isn't necessarily the most visible part of the picture, but it's definitely there.

In one of the earliest posts here, I tentatively defined the web as "all resources accessible on the net." I still like that definition -- it seems a little broad, but I'm not sure how to narrow it without cutting out too much -- and by that definition the box is definitely part of the web, and would (arguably) be even if the movies themselves didn't come in over a net connection.

If anything, the split between setting up the queue (webby) and watching (not so webby) bolsters the idea that the web is mostly about metadata -- relatively small bits of information about things, like in this case which movies are on your queue -- and not so much about large chunks of raw data like songs and movies.

Does this matter? From one point of view it's all pretty arbitrary, but questions like "is it the internet or not?" or "is it the web or not?" may matter quite a bit if you're down in the trenches fighting business and legal battles about who gets to charge whom how much for what. It will probably all shake out in the long term, but I can imagine it mattering at least for a while whether something is a "data service" or a "video service" or whatever.

I'm completely guessing here. I'm not a lawyer, and even less a businessperson.

Three times the commercials! That's progress for you ...

There seems to be a buzz developing over phone providers' "three-screen strategy." The idea is that you'll be able to get video -- TV shows, "user generated" videos, whatever -- delivered anywhere you like, whether your TV, your PC or your cell phone. Underpinning this is a new kind of distribution deal. Previously, carriers and providers had negotiated separate deals for the three kinds of device, but the latest deals cover all three.

This is a perfect example of convergence from the vendors' point of view, and a small but necessary step from the consumer's point of view. Again, there's a tension between competing interests. On the one hand, the carriers would like to be able to provide a broad selection of programming, since that will attract customers. But if everyone is providing the same broad selection then the service becomes a commodity, consumers can easily switch providers and the providers' margins shrink.

Right now, we seem to be at the "baby steps" stage, with deals covering content like five-minute excerpts from popular shows. Perhaps it's a bit early to make too many predictions.

Myself, I don't feel a great need to watch TV on my tiny cell phone screen, particularly since advertising seems to be a major part of the current plans, but advertising isn't necessarily bad, and I'm sure a lot of people won't mind greatly. As always, it will be interesting to see how things shake out.

Media convergence and divergence

Technically, it's game over.

There's no reason why a box like Roku's Netflix box [reviewed here] couldn't be used to deliver current TV shows, live events, premium cable content, whatever. And in fact, it looks like you can get just that kind of service from DSL providers (well, maybe you can -- it's not available where I am yet). Boxes like Apple TV are also in the mix; the streaming aspect is there, albeit downplayed.

There are some concerns about bandwidth on the backbone, but Cisco says it's manageable, and they're allowing for a sizable chunk of peer-to-peer traffic, which may (or may not) become less of an issue if people are happy with what they can get directly from the providers. If I can see a given movie anytime I want as part of a $10/month subscription, why would I hassle with copying it peer-to-peer? But maybe that's just me.

So somewhere around now, give or take a couple of years, is the point where in major markets it's technically reasonably easy to get all the media you want via the net, media meaning audio, video, phone (i.e., two-way point-to-point audio) and the web. At some point not too much later than that point -- again whether it's already happened or about to happen depends on your definitions -- it's all available in a mobile environment. Just take a more-or-less broadband mobile connection and use it instead of your wired connection. QED.

Technically, media convergence is here, and if technology were all that mattered we'd be about done. For better or worse, however, technology is only part of the show, and often not the part in charge. In this case, the real drivers are two divergent views of convergence: the consumer's view and the providers' view.

As a consumer, I want a complete mix-and-match free-for-all with the flexibility of the "pocket-thing" scenario. I can get my bits delivered any way I like and don't care which particular means is in effect at any given time. I can get whatever bits I like delivered without caring too much who's providing them, and in all cases I can easily pick how they're actually rendered useful to me.

If that's a bit too abstract (it seems a bit too abstract to me and I wrote it), here are some concrete examples of what that means:

• I could switch from, say, cable to DSL or WiMax or whatever tomorrow and, apart from performance, not notice the difference -- I could watch the same shows, keep the same phone number, listen to the same music, etc., etc.
• I get the same services when traveling as when at home, though again I may be dealing with a better or worse internet connection on the road. My services are tied to me, not to a particular location or device.
• If I want a particular bit of content -- a movie or a TV show, for example -- it doesn't matter whether I've got cable, DSL or something else, or where I am.
  

Providers, on the other hand, tend to take a different view. Convergence means you get all your media through them. They'd just as soon not have it be too easy to switch to a different provider tomorrow, and if you have to pay them again to access something on the road, so much the better. Hey, they're in business to make money and their interests are only partially aligned with yours.

My particular view is that the consumer will tend to win in the long run, but it will take a while and proceed in fits and starts. If what's provided gets too far out of line with what people want and what the technology can do, new players will step in and steal business from the existing ones. This tends to bring things back in line. The new players start to lose their competitive advantage, commoditization sets in, competition becomes harsher, weaker players are shaken out and competition wanes.

This lets the remaining players cash in and service once again get out of line with what people want and the technology will do. Which is where we came in ...

Interestingly, in the bullet points I gave above, video is the odd one out. Switching both land-line and mobile phone providers is fairly transparent. If you switch ISPs, your email accounts still work, and the web is the same, well, world-wide.

My guess is that this is at least partly because the technology for reasonable video over the net is only starting to become widely available, and that the Netflix/Roku box is an early participant in this particular cycle of innovation and shakeout. It's going to be an interesting time to be a studio or TV network, not to mention a cable or satellite TV company.

4G, BodyNet and future web experiences

It seems the buzz in the wireless world is over 4G: ubiquitous, fast, IP-based connectivity that doesn't care what it's carrying or who's carrying it. You'll hear the word "convergence" swirling around this, which might bring back ugly memories, but there was never anything wrong with the premise that phones, TVs and computers were going to meld into each other. The problem was with the notion it was all going to happen tomorrow, smoothly and using some particular favorite technology.

Convergence is happening, but by fits and starts, with mixed support from various industry players, over relatively long periods of time and in not-always-predictable ways. At least, I'll happily claim ignorance as to exactly how it will all play out.

Meanwhile, smaller-scale technologies like bluetooth and to some extent WiFi have helped decouple devices from each other. My phone -- a pretty basic model -- doesn't care whether it's using its builtin mic and speaker, my headset or the system in the car. I believe it also has some limited MP3 capability. This is just a taste of what Olin Shivers outlined in 1993 in BodyNet, though as always it's interesting to compare the vision with actuality.

Put those two trends together and assume that the market and we geeks will somehow make all this happen, and we could end up with a pretty slick setup. Everything is IP, so there's no such thing as phone service or TV service per se. It's all just bits. Peripherals like displays and speakers that today are just starting to be net-aware are net-aware by default. Transceivers like phones and routers use SDR (software-defined radio) to not care whether you're talking son-of-GSM, son-of-CDMA or something else entirely.

Here's a sketch of what it might look like. I make no claim of originality here. All the ideas are already in the air, and many of them already exist in some concrete form:

I'm at home getting ready to leave on a business trip. I'm listening to a radio news program (since it's news, it's probably live, but it could just as well be a playlist from my collection). In my pocket is something that looks more or less like a present-day phone or PDA. I slip on some sort of headset assembly with ear buds and microphone. My news program is still playing, but it's on the headset. The house speakers go mute as I leave.

I go out and get in my car. The thing in my pocket tells my car that it's satisfied that I'm with it -- maybe I pressed my thumb against it, maybe it uses some kind of magic. They use appropriate PK mojo to establish trust in one another. The car opens up and I get in. I have the option of leaving the sound in the headset (say, if I'm carpooling and the art of conversation has died) or putting it on the car speakers (as I do on this trip since it's just me).

I get a phone call. The audio stream pauses while I take the call and resumes when I'm done. The navigation system notifies me that there's a traffic jam on my usual route and suggests an alternate. I've only recently subscribed to this service. Just this morning, in fact. It wasn't a feature that the car's manufacturer planned for. Quite possibly the thing in my pocket is doing most of the negotiations behind the scenes and the car's navigation system is just following its cue, but I neither know nor care.

I get to the airport and follow the car's guidance to a good parking place. I'm not carrying a laptop per se. I'm carrying a keyboard/pad and display, though I contemplated leaving them behind. I get them out while I'm waiting at the gate and work on my presentation. They use the thing in my pocket for CPU, local cache and connectivity. At home, the system might use my router and non-mobile connection for better bandwidth or possibly because it's cheaper, but again I neither know nor care.

I get on the plane. The thing in my pocket tells the plane that I'm here. The plane knows I'm ticketed. The pocket-thing may also help me through security, but they may want better proof than a possibly-hacked piece of hardware. My keyboard and display are packed away because the ones provided on the plane are a nicer fit for that space. I board, settle in and finish up a last bit of work before I pick out a movie from my collection.

Another phone call comes in, the caller ID flashing on the screen. It's not urgent so I let it ring through. It's a short flight and I want some shuteye, so I pause the movie. The plane lands. I get off and follow the instructions from the voice in my headset to the train platform. Once I'm seated comfortably, I check my voicemail, deal with the call, then pull out my display and watch a bit more of the movie. Or maybe I'd rather just watch it on the small screen of the pocket-thing.

At the client site I pull up a desk, pull out my keyboard (because I like it) but use the display on the desk (because it's bigger and sharper than my portable one). It'll be a similar story at the hotel. I'll say hi to the staff, go up to my room, which will let me in on cue from the pocket-thing and lock behind me when I go. I'll watch the rest of the movie on the in-room gigundo-screen surround sound system. Nice perk, that. But first I'll call home and videoconference with the family, then do a little web browsing on the long-term effects of living in a constant radio bath.

Most likely, though, I'll still have brought a book along.